Ok, so I was going to explain, in an author's note, why Noemi was snippy (and apparently bitchy and annoying), but I thought to myself "Why should I when they didn't read the words I wrote explaining things?" So I am just going to do a brief thing in case I was to vague for a couple of people.
1. Noemi didn't sleep hardly at all. I can't be the only one who gets snippy when they don't sleep.
2. Noemi immediately felt bad for snapping at Paddy, though in my opinion he deserved a little dressing down.
3. She is a 24yo woman surrounded by headstrong men who think THEY are in control. She has no experience. Can you really blame her for needing to assert her dominance over them?
4. And yes she was being a little snotty with Tommy but come on! He was being a dick.
Ok, I think I am done now. Any more complaints I need to address before we go? No? Good. Hopefully this next chapter will redeem her in the eyes of her critics.
"Hey, Paddy, a moment?" Noemi gestured behind her with a thumb. Paddy gave a nod and put down the bag of ice he had been fiddling with while Tommy lay on his back in a corner of the locker room, staring blankly at the ceiling. If it hadn't been for his chest moving, Paddy and Noemi would have thought he had been turned to stone. Paddy slowly heaved himself from the folding metal chair they had allowed him to use and grimaced at the creaking in his bad knees. He slowly shuffled to the other side of the door where Noemi stood waiting with an unsure expression on her face. Paddy noticed that her lips were redder from her chewing at them since they had gotten to the event.
"Hey, uh, I just wanted to apologize for the other day." She said and Paddy frowned. "When I snapped at you on the phone." Paddy nodded and soundlessly 'ahh'ed with a nod. "I am sorry I snapped. I shouldn't have. I mean we are working together on this. And I want us to be a partnership." Paddy hid his smile at her awkward speech and how she kept shifting her weight on her heels. Paddy held his hands up with a gentle smile to halt her.
"Look, I didn't take it personally and you did have a point. I'm used to taking control of things. I am used to taking orders from men my age, not girls old enough to be a granddaughter." Paddy tried not to get his hackles up when she folded her arms across her chest and snorted at him.
"Paddy, I get it. Really, I do. But I just need you to remember that I am in charge here. You can speak your piece but that doesn't mean I will listen and I won't have you bullying me. Plain as that." She told him firmly with a matter of fact shrug of her shoulders. "So, I am sorry I snapped at you, but I meant what I said."
Paddy nodded at her and went to turn back into the locker room when her hand on his arm stopped him. He could hear the crowd getting riled up. It was almost time for the fight. He looked into her striking amber eyes and saw worry hardened by authority.
"You know what is going on with him and I expect you to be honest with me. I know you don't think I should be in his business but when he signed that contract he made it my business. If you don't want to involve me, then involve yourself. Whatever it is that he is doing, do something about it. Before I do, because god knows it won't be pretty if I get involved. I have too much on my hands with RevGear and Riley, I don't need you ignoring what needs to be done." Noemi told him. "You know what's going on and I am going to go out on a limb and trust you know what you are doing. Don't let me down." Paddy nodded and swung into the locker room. He stared at Tommy laying motionless on the floor.
Paddy twitched at the thought of how much of a hurricane she would be if she found out that Tommy was drinking and they had kept it from her.
Crack! Tommy blinked a few times feeling a fog clear from his brain. Noemi was crouched in front of him smacking him on the cheek and yelling at him.
"Are you here? Are you with me?" Her brows were furrowed. She looked both worried and mad. Tommy nodded as his eyes scanned his surroundings. When did I get here? Where is here? Would have sworn I was in Iraq not two seconds ago. Noemi tapped him on the cheek again and pain blossomed from it. He winced but it helped him focus. "Hey, stay with me!" She got closer to him and talked to him without her lips moving. "You're in a smoker fight in Jersey. And you're getting your ass kicked 'cause you won't fight back. The fuck is going on?" She growled.
"Uh," Tommy answered and looked around. He caught movement from over her shoulder and saw a young middle eastern looking man looking eager to get his gloves on him. "He looks like that kid." Tommy mumbled. Noemi smacked him again and he realized he was getting sucked back into his head.
"He is not who ever you think he is. Look at me!" She got in his face and he could concentrate on nothing but her burning amber eyes. "You are going to get up and you are going to put that little bastard in his place, you got me?!" Her words cleared out much of the fog and his head started to clear more. "You are not coming out of this cage until you are covered in his blood. Do. You. Understand. Me?" She snarled viciously. The blood hungry beast in his chest jumped to life and clawed to get out at her words. The memories of how soothing it felt to hit something living was coming back to the forefront of his brain.
"Yeah." He growled. Noemi searched his eyes and face for a while before nodding solemnly. She stood up and stared down at where he was seated on a small stool.
"Get your fucking ass to work and end him." She said with a glimmer of violence in her eyes and Tommy loved it. He cracked a grin as she shoved his mouth piece at him. He stood and she snatched the stool out from under him. She gave a cold nod to the ref before swinging out of the caged arena and to where Pop stood, watching.
"You ready?" The ref asked, pointing at him. Tommy brought his gloves up and stared at the torso of his opponent. He is not that little boy you killed. It's all in your head. He told himself before lunging forward and aiming lighting strike fast punches.
Noemi held her breath as she watched Tommy tear through the eastern kid in front of him. He punched him out in seconds, just like usual. She let her breath out in relief that he was finally acting a little more normally. She had her hand up to her mouth and was nibbling at a nail, not biting through, just pinching it with her teeth. Can I actually do this? Can I look in Tommy's eyes and hide how much I worry? To lie to him? Will he choke at Sparta? Will I be able to pull him out of it every time? How much longer will I be able to be strong for him before I break? A large meaty hand came to rest on her shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze. She flinched a little and turned to see Paddy trying to calm her and being awkward about it. She twitched her lips at him and turned back to watch Tommy stalk around the cage with less than his usual enthusiasm.
"You are hiding things from me, Paddy." Noemi said over the roar of the crowd. Noemi watched as Tommy wiped away the blood streaking out of the corner of his lip from the blow he received to his jaw. She could see the bruises darkening on his skin already. "Does it have anything to do with what just happened?" Noemi asked without looking at the man.
"No." Paddy grumbled in response. Noemi nodded and turned to meet Tommy outside the cage door, letting the old man's hand slowly fall from her shoulder. Whatever it is, let it go. Trust in Paddy. He is here for you and his son. Noemi walked up to Tommy with the patching up kit and helped him wipe the blood from his face and start applying ice to where he was swelling. She fought to keep herself impassive in the face of his swelling eyes and jaw. She knew he was hurting and would be in a bad way tomorrow when the bruising really set in but it was his mind that worried her the most.
"You ok? Can you do the next three? We can back out, it's alright." She offered to him. She was reassured by the flare of icy fire in his eyes at her suggestion. He shook his head and more of his resolved fighting mind set came over him. She could see in his eyes that he was in the present now. She nodded and smiled. "You destroy them then." She growled at him and watched him grin viciously back at her with the twinkle of violence in his blackened eyes. Be strong for him. He needs it.
Noemi had the patching up kit in one hand and Tommy's paper work under her arm as she walked across the near empty parking lot towards Paddy's car. Tommy was already lounging in the back and Paddy was just waiting on her to finish up before they left. The night was clear but still held the chill of winter even though they were over half way through March. Her phone rang and vibrated in her back pocket. She kept walking toward the Oldsmobile while she answered it.
"Noemi," She said. She hadn't bothered to looked at the caller I.D. before speaking. There was odd breathing coming from the speaker and Noemi frowned. "Hello?" She asked, starting to get a little creeped out and pissed off. Better not be Kevin trying to creep me out again.
"Mi," Frank's voice said, but it wasn't a tone she had heard in his voice for many years. Noemi's stomach dropped out of her body and she stood stalk still. Frank wasn't much for calling her by her childhood nickname. He usually only reserved its use for special occasions, so Noemi knew it was serious. Especially when paired with the dead hollowness in his voice. She mentally ran though possible scenarios where something bad could have happened.
"Frank. What's wrong?" She asked. She could hear a cacophony of voices in the back ground but she couldn't make any of them out.
"Mi." His voice cracked a little and Noemi's heart started to break before she even knew what had happened. "It's Jessa." His voice cracked again and she could sense his pain. Oh, fuck.
"Where are you?" Noemi went straight into taking control of the situation. Be strong. Half of her was panicking and screaming 'no' while the other half told her that Frank couldn't handle this on his own. Keep it together. For all his strength in the cage, he did not deal well with real life trauma.
"Mercy Hospital." He said hollowly and Noemi could hear a sniffle coming from over the phone.
"Oh fuck." Noemi whispered. Her brain ran though many things in a short period of time. It seemed like hours but it was more like nanoseconds. My brother needs me now. She started walking back towards the car with new purpose. "I am in Jersey right now. I will be there in a couple of hours. Hold it together until then." She hung up on him and jogged in her heels to the car. She wrenched the door open, sat down and slammed it closed harder than she probably needed. She turned to stare at Paddy. "Take me to Philly." She told him.
"What's goin' on?" Tommy asked from the back seat, his full bottom lip swollen from a hit he took that slurred his words some. She turned around in her seat while Paddy made his way to the nearest highway.
"Jessa's in the hospital and Frank needs me. Paddy is going to drop me off in Philly and you are going home." She said firmly. Tommy closed his mouth at the hard tone in her voice and the fire in her eyes.
"How are you gonna get to the Burgh?" Tommy asked dumbly.
"I'll figure it out." She replied.
She fidgeted all though the drive to Philly, even barked at Paddy to drive faster a couple of times.
"I am looking for Jessa Campana." Noemi said at the first desk she saw. She knew she looked harried but she didn't think she warranted the wide eyed stare she got from the woman behind the desk. Noemi impatiently stood waiting for the woman to finish typing in the name and getting her the room information.
Noemi stood with her arms crossed in the hospital building looking around for something to do. Hospitals made her queasy, this one especially. The smell of the cleaners and the empty echo of the halls never failed to bring back memories of Mom laying in a bed after more failed trials to get her uterine cancer under control. Her choosing to die rather than have the doctors take what she thought made her a woman. Noemi rubbed hands up and down her arms trying to warm the instinctual chill away.
"Room 245 B. It is on the second floor and you will be looking for Suite 1786. Once you get to Suite 1786 you will need to check in at the front desk before they will let you see her." Noemi gave a half hearted smile before striding away.
Her heart raced and her blood pounded in her ears while she went meandering through the near empty hallways. She couldn't imagine what Frank was going through. This was his fear. Losing her. Like they lost Mom and Daddy. She didn't want Frank to go back to those dark days where he drowned himself in work until he couldn't anymore.
"Frank?" Noemi asked in a whisper peaking her head around the door that the nurse had shown her to. It was well into the early morning hours, somewhere around 3 or 4 in the morning. It had taken a lot of bitching and complaining to get them to let her back here but she had managed it. Noemi's eyes scanned the darkened room as she slowly closed the door behind her. She held her heels in one hand and tiptoed quietly across the cold industrial floors. She had taken them off in the waiting room.
The only light came from a dim lamp in the corner of the room. There were plenty of monitoring machines but they flashed numbers silently. Noting blood pressure, heart rate and things of that nature. From an IV stand hung multiple bags of fluids that Kevin would know, though Noemi recognized one as blood. Jessa lay under a pile of white blankets looking too pale and very sickly. She lay still and asleep posed with her head slightly propped up and her arms above the covers at her sides. She had a hospital gown pulled over her with little green and blue triangles on it. Her bedraggled blond hair was smoothed around her on the pillow.
Noemi quietly put her bag and heels down on the floor by the door, out of the way should any one come in. She walked slowly towards her brother who didn't acknowledge her presence.
Frank sat in an uncomfortable looking chair at her bedside staring hollowly at the wall where a catholic cross hung. He sat still as a statue in navy blue plaid pajama pants and a white tee shirt that had smears of blood on them, including a smudged hand print on his chest. He was wearing the slippers he wore around the house that Noemi had gotten for him three Christmases ago on his feet and no socks. One pocket bulged with what was likely his wallet and keys. His hair stood on end messily and he had dried tear tracks on his face. He had an expression in his eyes like that of a shell shocked soldier.
Noemi walked over and stood by him, reaching a hand out to his shoulder. She felt him flinch at the touch of her hand but still didn't move his gaze from the wall. Noemi sighed and crouched by his knees, trying to get into his line of sight. Noemi bit her lip as tears crept into her eyes. No, don't cry. He needs you to be strong. She was worried about Jessa but she was now becoming more worried about Frank. She hadn't seen that dead look in his eyes since Mom died. She knew that Jessa wouldn't respond well to Frank being like this. He was her rock and she would need him.
"Frank," Noemi said softly and put her right palm to his cheek. She turned his head towards her and begged him to look her in the eyes. Frank's light brown eyes slowly shifted so that the defeated expression in them landed on her. Her eyes welled and she truly hoped that things were not as bad as they seemed. Please, no, don't take her from him. A little more awareness came to her brother's eyes as he gave her a sad watery smile.
"Mi." Frank croaked as the welling tears in his eyes over flowed and coursed down his angular face. Noemi launched herself forward and clasped Frank in her arms, telling herself that Frank needed her to be strong for him so that he could be strong for Jessa. She told her tears to suck themselves back into her eyes because she was not going to loose her cool around her brother while he needed her to be strong. Frank quietly wept on her shoulder for what felt like eternity but when things like this happen, every thing seems to move too slowly.
Noemi sat perched on the arm of Frank's chair, her arms wrapped around his shoulders while they both watched Jessa's chest rise and fall with even breaths. They had been sitting that way for a while when Noemi turned to Frank.
"You ok?" She whispered while stroking his hair back, which only made the coarse strands stand on end more. He looked so much like the pictures of Daddy when he was younger. Especially the unruly almost black hair that stood straight out in all directions. She spotted a tiny cluster of greys at his temple and pressed her lips together despite her smile. Frank lifted his head from against her shoulder and looked at his baby sister. He frowned at her.
"What happened?" Frank asked, his deep voice coming out a rasp.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Noemi asked with a raised eyebrow. Frank's lips almost twitched in amusement at her attitude but instead rubbed at a spot on her cheek, his thumb coming away with flakes of blood. She looked at her hands after seeing it. There was still some under her nails and around her cuticles.
"We were at a fight in Jersey. Just leaving when you called. Tommy got hit and I mopped him up. Must have smeared some on me." She said looking at her hands and remembering the bleeding eyebrow cut he had when she had slapped him to snap him out of it. She still didn't know how she felt about what happened. She had put those events in a corner and focused on what Frank would need from her.
"He ok?" Frank asked. Noemi nodded and they fell into silence again.
"She gonna be ok?" Noemi whispered as though afraid to ask in the quiet of the room and Jessa laying not feet from them. Noemi could feel Frank's chest heave next to her.
"They think so."
"What happened?" Noemi waited while Frank decided if he could answer or not.
"She miscarried." He choked out. Noemi brought her head from staring at his sleeping wife to stare at her brother.
"I didn't know you guys were trying."
"We weren't. Doc said she was maybe a month or two. We didn't know."
"Oh," Noemi said lamely.
"They said it was ectopic or something like that. There was blood everywhere." He whispered brokenly. "She woke me up and it was everywhere. I got her here and they took her in. Said she hemorrhaged and they had to do surgery. Didn't know she was anemic. Her blood wasn't gonna clot good."
"Shit," Noemi mouthed to herself. She took a deep breath and let the information sink in. "What about the baby?" Frank shook his head.
"Between her body and where the docs said it was, she wasn't going to keep it. They cleaned it out the rest of the way and made sure she wasn't gonna bleed any more." Frank gave a shaky sigh and Noemi knew the tears were coming again. "You know how Daddy told us to never say never. That once we did we would find it in ourselves to want what we thought we didn't want."
"Yeah. I always thought he was talking about Mom." Noemi said wistfully, missing the wisdom that their father had.
"I know what he was saying now." Frank told Noemi while staring at his wife. "I thought I didn't want kids. I mean Jessa's great but I always thought that kids weren't for me. Brendan loves his but I didn't know what to do with them when we visited." Frank paused and took a deep breath. "When the doctors told me she was pregnant, I was happy. I didn't know what to think but I was happy. Jessa is a girl that deserves children. She would make a great mother. But then they told me that she had lost it and I mourned for what I didn't know I wanted." Frank gave a sad smile and rubbed at his nose. "I warned her when we got married that I didn't want kids. Now I do and we don't even know if she still can." Noemi took a deep breath and pulled her brother's head to her shoulder.
"We will figure it out. We will all figure it out and it will all be as it should be." She told him, hoping it would help.
"You sound more like Mom each and every day." Frank mumbled before relaxing against her with a heavy sigh. Noemi gave him a squeeze across his shoulders. Sometimes she thought that Frank missed Mom more than her but then she thought about all the years she missed out on having her there with her. No, they missed Mom just the same. The difference was that Noemi had long ago accepted the fact that people die and it was a part of life to lose those you love.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" She asked softly while staring at Jessa's sleeping form. She hoped she woke up soon.
"I don't know." Frank huffed darkly. Noemi squeezed him again, knowing he needed the reassurance. His answer to her said a lot about what he was thinking. He was lost.
"I can think of a few things I can do." Noemi rubbed his deltoid when she heard his sigh of relief. Noemi smiled at how ironic it was for the baby sister to be the one to take care of the older brother, but it was what they had done for years. Noemi was always making sure Frank ate and slept and stayed in bed when he was sick. All those years after Daddy died, Noemi had taken care of her brother more than he took care of her sometimes. Not to say that Frank did not soothe her from bad dreams or take her side in the conflicts that happened at school or feed her soup when she was sick, it was just that most of the time Noemi cared for Frank. Just like Mom did.
"I need your keys." Noemi said with her hand out. Frank stared at her with a frown.
"What about your car?"
"It's in Pittsburgh."
"Then how did you get here?" Frank asked dumbly while Noemi huffed playfully and rolled her eyes.
"Paddy drove us in his car. Dropped me off here on our way back." Noemi smiled at the dawning realization while he dug in his pockets for his keys. He dropped the heavy bundle into her hand.
"I think I kept some of your old clothes in a box in the basement if you want to change." Frank mumbled. Noemi nodded before getting up from her perch on his chair. She grabbed her bag and her heels from by the door.
"Call me if you think of anything or need something." Noemi watched Frank nod and give her a sad excuse for a reassuring smile. She smiled back, more at the thought that he was trying to reassure her than anything else. "She'll be ok. You'll see." Noemi said brightly, hoping that she was not lying to her brother. God, please let me right. I couldn't bare it if I lied to him. She didn't know anything about miscarriages, pregnancies, or anemia. But it was worth the brightening of hope in her brother's light brown eyes. She lifted her fingers from around his keys in a wave. "Love you." She mumbled awkwardly before leaving the hospital room.
Franks murmured 'Love you too, Mi.' made her heart clench in her chest and tears well in her eyes. Frank and her weren't much for verbally saying those words in normal conditions and she couldn't remember the last time her brother had said them back to her. Which made them all the more special as she walked quietly through the dim and silent hospital halls.
Read and Review! I need to know what you think and if I need to change things in the up coming chapters.